Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Cinetron 1100-B User's Manual

A Cinetron system originally sold to George Eastman at Kinetics in Chicago was sold to the Massachusetts College of Art and Design a few years back and has been use in their Animation Department since. 
George Eastman first encountered Cinetron when he used a Cinetron system about 1977 at Eskay, an optical and effects company in Chicago.  Eskay purchased a '500' system that was later upgraded to an '800' system.
After using the Eskay system for a while, George purchased the first 1100 sold by Cinetron for his company, Kinetics, and later upgraded it to an 1100B system.  That is the system now is at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Since George and Kinetics were the first to receive delivery on an 1100, the User's Manual given to him was a copy of the draft of the final manual.  Not a big problem for George since he was trained by Cinetron and a bright guy anyway.  George and Kinetics never got an updated 1100 manual and I didn't have a copy of one either.
The college was in need of a better copy of the book so Adam Savje, Manager of the Animation Department, had a transcript made and sent the electronic version to me.  I took that version and corrected quite a few typos and outright errors, added hyperlinks and some new illustrations and made a PDF copy for them and posted one on my website here: http://www.charlesvaughn.com/1100b_Manual.html .
Anyone interested in a bit of nostalgia can check it out and any users still out there can make use of it as well if they like .  Much of the general information portion of the manual applies to every system made by Cinetron carrying a model name designation below 2000.
Another item of possible interest is that Adam and I were able to move the Cinetron PC DOS applications, loader and files to a Windows 7 PC by using Oracle Virtual Box, some tweaking and some luck.
Charlie
 

2 comments:

  1. I was just passing by, and after doing business with y'all for about 25 years, I never knew Cinetron's creation story. I thoroughly enjoyed the read. Wishing everyone well. Mike
    Reilly, Panel Engraver.

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  2. Hi Mike
    I remember you well and I'm sure that quite a few Cinetron customers appreciate the fine engraving job that you did for us and, indirectly, for them. I just looked at one of those panels at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston last October. Still looks great even though the system was built in the 70's.
    All the best
    Charlie

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